Thought Snax

I’ve been percolating a post about religion and religious tolerance.  It started around the time of Tebowmania, and each time I’d think I had just the right angle, something new and blogworthy would happen, like a panel of celibate dudes lecturing the world on contraception.  That post may still occur, but this snippet (sorry!) was too good to wait:

Stephen Colbert on Thursday tackled the practice of posthumously baptizing Holocaust victims into the Mormon church.  . . . But “Jews don’t baptize, so instead I will now proxy-circumcise all the dead Mormons,” Colbert said.

The practice of posthumous baptism is fascinating to me from a number of angles.  Given that Jews don’t believe that baptism has any significance, our collective response should logically be “knock yourselves out, guys.  Enjoy the swim.”  But for sheer creepiness, it is really hard to outdo.  If I got word that my Jewish ancestors were being, well, not “baptized,” because that is not a meaningful concept to me, but invoked during a Mormon pool party the upshot of which is to say that their religion is better than mine, I’d be good and annoyed.  And creeped out.

Stephen Colbert has the answer.  Posthumous conversion of Mormons to Jews!

(I couldn’t get the Comedy Central video clip to embed, and I’ve wasted just about enough jury-instruction-drafting time trying.  For the full, hilarious, clip, click here.)

I’m thinking of proxy converting everyone, living or dead, to my religion:  Unaffiliated Skeptic With A Working Hypothesis of Monotheism.  Our main sacrament is Trying to Figure Out What It All Means.  All of my new converts would wander around in the same state of religious confusion in which I dwell, engaging in the Sacrament by asking each other, “What do you think it all means?” and listening respectfully to the answer.   No special clothing or food required.  And most importantly, no oppressing, killing, or even legislating against anyone else’s faith.

Expand & protect.

Lunch yesterday with my awesome friend Susie Greene, who has just produced/published this multimedia investigation into solitary confinement.  Extra bonus awesomeness, it features ass-kicking DU clinical professor Laura Rovner.   The video will expand your brain into the toxic arena of solitary confinement.  You thought it was just a few days “in the hole” for bad behavior.  Think again.

And, um, protect.  After lunch — at the (perfectly appropriate) prodding of Susie and Tim — Susie took me ski-helmet shopping.   I have been trying to convince myself that having skied for 40ish years without a helmet, I was somehow grandfathered (grandmothered?) in.   But even I had to admit, finally, that this made no damn sense.  So now I’ll look like this when I ski:

Or more realistically:

Sam Bagenstos has written a thoughtful post on the use of the word “retard” in movies and our response as a community.  He was responding to this post, which was reacting, in turn, to the use of the word “retard” in the Alexander Payne/George Clooney movie, The Descendents.  I tend to agree — on general free expression and artistic license grounds — that we should not be in the business of telling writers what to write.  But I’m hoping for the day when the casual use of the word “retard” carries the weight that the casual use “nigger” or “cunt” would.  (For example, I’m predicting it was pretty jarring to read those words in my blog.  Was it equally jarring to read the word “retard”?)

Given the intersection of language nerdery and disability rights, this is a subject that interests me and that I’ve written about a couple of times.  Sam’s blog post makes excellent points, including that

People use the r-word in real life, just like they use slurs against other groups (and just like they do other harmful and wrongful things), and it would be wrong to say that movies and literature can’t depict that.  (And I think it’s a cheat to say that the use of the word can be depicted but only if the character who uses it “learns the lesson” that it’s wrong or is otherwise shown to be a bad and unsympathetic character.  That’s not any different than requiring purely idealized depictions of people.)

Very true.  In fact, if the word were restricted to movies, books, or tv shows in which lessons were learned, we’d only hear it in after-school specials, where the bully turns out to have problems of his own, reforms, and everyone has a group hug in the end.  No, rather than requiring lessons be learned or the word avoided, I’m hoping the movie-going public evolves to the point where the writer knows that putting that word in a character’s mouth will communicate something deeply negative about that character.  Right now, the choice to have a white character use the word “nigger,” without the quotes, directed to or about an African-American, communicates something very specific and negative:  the speaker is a racist asshole.  Same with “cunt”:  sexist bastard, or denizen of frontier Deadwood, South Dakota.

The truth is, I find it incredibly jarring and disappointing when a character in a movie with whom I sympathize (or perceive that I’m supposed to sympathize) uses the word “retard” as a casual epithet.  It’s similar to the phenomenon that Ta-Nehisi Coates has called “the John Mayer Rule,” and which I called “drinking with white people”:   that moment when someone you thought was cool says something bigoted  . . . and the concomitant urge to avoid situations (in my case, drinking with acquaintances who don’t get disability rights) where this might happen.  There are good reasons why George Clooney would not say a long list of offensive epithets in a movie of the type I understand The Descendants to be.  I’m hoping for the day when writers and actors will think that way about the word “retard” and use it accordingly.

One final thought:  a laser-focus on one word misses is the many ways movies and TV can be demeaning to people with disabilities while remaining pristine in language use.  One of my favorite examples is Law & Order, which has presented a long string of pathetic and/or criminal people with disabilities, without once (that I can recall) showing, say, an attorney, detective, forensic professional, or random witness in a wheelchair.  Two episodes stick in my mind.  In one, a mother is accused of killing her son, a quadriplegic.  The son is presented as unable to get out of bed and as a result we are asked to sympathize with the homicidal mother.  Scenery-chewing DA Jack McCoy tells the jury — as a fact, I promise, not as a negative comment on the mother’s narrow world view — “she knew he’d never grow up to be a doctor or lawyer.”  Seriously – how hard would it have been for the writers to figure out that there are all sorts of quad doctors and lawyers and other professionals?  The other episode I recall was where the hunt for the killer led toward the brother who was paralyzed and as a result bitter and murderous.  While I can’t recall others off the top of my head, I don’t recall any portrayals of people who use wheelchairs straying beyond vegetative and/or embittered.  I’d take 100 George Clooney “retard” utterances over this.  Although we keep watching the damn show,* we know to turn it off the instant there is mention of a character with a disability.  We know, to a 100% certainty, that L&O will screw it up.

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* L&O occupies the very small overlapping area of Tim and my taste in television:

The New Yorker recently published an article on premature birth that inspired this thoroughly appalling letter:

So let me get this straight:  Instead of ensuring that our educational system teaches all of our children, we should “accept death,” lest we be excessively sentimental to the detriment of . . . the special education students to whom we so desperately — but  apparently inappropriately? — want to cling.  What does Linda Bonin of Kirkland Washington think we should do instead?   Administer the PSAT prenatally?   What really frosts my shorts is that Ms. Bonin was almost certainly regarded as a good person — someone who liked to help people — possibly even by the parents of the special education students whose very existence she regretted, unsentimentally.

Who the hell is Ms. Bonin to decide that her students didn’t deserve to live.  Who are any of us?

I’m not talking about things that are bad but widely acknowledged to be bad like, murder or the Dallas Cowboys.  And I’m not talking about things that I’m confident are bad but as to which I grudgingly acknowledge that marginally reasonable minds could differ, like mayonnaise or light beer.  I’m talking about things that allegedly smart people in allegedly polite company seem to have no problem with but that are completely morally indefensible.

Peter Singer.  This guy is a philosophy professor at Princeton who advocates killing infants with disabilities.  Seriously.  I’m not sure this guy is on anyone’s radar outside the black-turtleneck-and-tweed world and the disability rights world, but now you know:  Princeton has on its faculty a professor who favors infanticide for disabled kids, largely based on his utilitarian approach which is based, in turn, on the sound philosophical principle that upper class white guys with tenure can judge the quality of life experienced by the rest of the world and make life and death decisions based on that judgment. I’m all for academic freedom and the First Amendment, and I don’t advocate that this guy be fired or punished for these absurd views.  I’m just wondering why on earth he’s taken seriously.  It’s like Princeton deciding to hire a Holocaust denier or “intelligent design” advocate — or really someone who offered a principled, philosophical defense of slavery.  I would defend any of those hires in the name of academic freedom, but I really think that many more people would join me in puzzlement as to why the hell such a person has a chair at Princeton.

The Tomahawk Chop. Atlanta Braves fans spend a large part of each game making gestures designed to mimic a tomahawk and humming a tune designed to mimic what antediluvian Hollywood thought was Native American music.  This is just gross racial mockery.*  I have to confess (sorry, Bruce) that I feel the same way about “Redskins.”  I don’t have a problem in general with Native American team names — Braves, Indians, Seminoles — because there are plenty of other groups-of-people names:  Padres, Vikings, Patriots, Mariners, Royals, Twins, Pirates, Rangers, Canucks, Canadiens, Packers, Texans, Buccaneers, Cowboys, Raiders, Senators, Kings, Celtics, Cavaliers, Trail Blazers, Warriors.  And, um, Wizards?  But “Redskins” is an epithet, not a generic group-of-people name.  Sorry.**

Flying the Confederate flag. What part of treason is unclear to these folks?  Seriously.  I love the fact that throughout the south “United We Stand” bumper stickers are pasted side-by-side with the stars & bars.  Again, I have no problem, as a First Amendment matter, with flying whatever flag you want.  Just don’t asked to be taken seriously when you display the Confederate flag and question other people’s patriotism.

“Free Mumia.” Give the man a fair trial, but damn, it sure looks like he shot a cop.  Let’s not free him til we’ve tried him fairly and he’s been acquitted.

This is a very very partial list.  Feel free to share your contributions in the comments!  (Really!  I LOVE comments!)

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* I always loved that Jane Fonda, during her Ted Turner period, could regularly be found in the Braves’ audience chopping away.  For you conservatives who hate her for being a liberal, the joke’s on you:  she’s just another shallow celebrity looking for attention — and you give it to her!

** I predict that this will engender more brotherly ire than all my liberal political rantings put together.

Next time you are tempted to call someone a retard, or a [clever neologism]tard, or even accuse them of riding the short bus, stop and substitute one of the following offensive first-letter-only words: the N one; the S one; or the K, C, or J ones.

I’m actually going to make the argument that calling someone a r****d is worse than calling an African-American a n****r or a Chinese person a c***k.  Because it is not generally people with cognitive disabilities who are being called r****ds.  It’s not just a word of derision for the minority in question.  It is more commonly used to disparage people who are not cognitively disabled.  It’s saying “you are bad because you are like a person with a cognitive disability.”  Like calling white people n*****rs or c****ks:  “you are bad because you are like a black person . . . or a Chinese person.”

And liberals, I’m looking at you.  Mostly I’m looking at you because you’re all I read these days.  I know I know … echo chamber blah blah blah.  But when I want to read illogical ad hominem bullshit, I’ll stick with opposing counsel’s filings — which I have to read anyway.

I’m also looking at you liberals because you’re supposed to know better.  Remember?  We’re the ones who respect everyone.  Everyone.  Not “I’ve learned the words I’m supposed to use for black people and brown people and girl people but it’s just such a drag to have to learn the ones for disabled people.”  Everyone.

So, anecdotes, anyone?  How about the otherwise hilarious Wonkette, which insists on adding the suffix “tard” to turn random words into insults:

• Paultard
• Palestinetard
• Libtard
• Conservatard

This is seriously like deciding that it’s hilarious to insult people by adding “igger” to the end of other words.  Pauliggers.  Libiggers.  Conserviggers.  Palestiniggers.  That last one is just awful on so many levels, eh?  Now, do you get how truly awful Palestinetards is?

I’m predicting a common response.  Maybe I underestimate you, but what I predict is the response above:  it’s just such a drag to keep track of all this!  I just learned to say Negro, when I was told to say Black, then it was Africa-American.  Oriental? Asian?  Ooooo noooooo!  It’s just so confusing!

A while back I had an email exchange with a fairly prominent liberal blogger who had used the word “retarded” as an epithet.  I called him on it — saying it was equivalent to offensive expressions such as “jew him down.”  Here is the rest of the colloquy – quoted at some length because I think it typifies the common reaction, and sets out my views succinctly:

Prominent Liberal Blogger:  “Unfortunately, it’s hard to keep track of all the words that offend some subsection of the population these days.  I’ll watch myself in the future, although I have to admit that I have a hard time equating this to such a plainly offensive expression as ‘jew him down.’”

Me: I hear you, and I confess that I predicted this response.  The “keep track of” argument segregates groups whose rights and feelings are worth worrying about (Blacks; Jews) from those who aren’t really on the radar screen (people with cognitive disabilities).  The term you used is plainly offensive to a large subsection of the population; just one that you don’t really think about.

PLB: I really don’t think you can dismiss the issue like that.  It really is hard, and there really are lots of groups who get offended over things.  It’s just impossible for any single person to track it all.  It’s not as if there’s some clear rule for figuring out whether a term is legitimately offensive, after all.
Here in [his location], for example, it’s considered offensive to display the flag of Vietnam.  Big Vietnamese population, you see, and they insist that only the old South Vietnamese flag should ever be displayed publicly.  Is that legitimate? Or is the flag of Vietnam the flag of Vietnam, whether you like it or not?

Me: I would argue that there is a difference between using a term in a disparaging or pejorative manner and a political dispute.  I am firmly of the view, for example, that if you think affirmative action is wrong, or that gays should not be allowed to marry (both positions with which I disagree) or that one political system is or is not legitimate in Vietnam (a position on which I am sadly ignorant) there is nothing offensive about asserting and defending your political views.  I’ll argue anything on the merits.

Politely.[*]

On the other hand, you used a slang term that refers to a type of person and you used it in a pejorative sense.  You were not (I hope) expressing a negative political or other substantive view about people with cognitive disabilities.  I think common courtesy, rather than political correctness, would suggest that the word not be used that way.

Hell, even in the political context, a bit of forethought and courtesy would not be a bad thing.  If I were going to be a guest in the home of a Vietnamese person, I might look into the matter and not wear, say, a tee shirt with the wrong flag.  I really do think people with different views can speak to one another politely and respectfully.

* [Full disclosure:  Politely, but with occasional, okay fairly common, use of cuss words.]